Danny's Song

It was 10 years ago today that young (but not young enough) pitching phenom Danny Almonte was formally stripped of his Little League World Series successes. He was a 14-year-old from the Bronx tearing it up in the 12-and-under event, which wasn’t just breaking the rules, it was kind of pathetic.

The sporting media world swooned over his nearly perfect performance in the 2001 LLWS (perhaps in part because he was from New York City, heh heh), then took hyperbolic umbrage that they’d been duped.

Mark, however, remained indifferent.
(My favorite unsung comment from the hurricane weekend was his complete non sequitur, “I will be so fucking happy when the LLWS is over.”)

As a stupid aside: In the fall of 1987, my high school football team was walloped (on a weekly basis, but in particular) one Saturday by the Blue Ridge School, 45-14. Most guys on our team remember the game well, not because I scored a long touchdown (non-humble brag), but because a couple of years later it was made known that the RB who’d run for 5 scores and a million yards against us had been 21 at the time. Annoying. But much like the reaction with Almonte, we felt like the kid could be blamed a little, while the parents, coaches, or anyone who had known (or should have known) . . . well, they sucked.

As for Danny Almonte’s parents, who repeatedly swore on American television that their son was 12 . . . yep, they sucked, too.

Where is Danny Almonte now???
After the Almonte family’s very public embarrassment and banishment (even the league president was banned from the LLWS for life), Danny’s progression became painful evidence of how pointless the whole fraud was, other than to garner a little fleeting fame at great expense. He played some high school ball, but wasn’t drafted by MLB. He hit very well for a JuCo, but wasn’t drafted. He got married at 18 to a thirtysomething woman, and probably was taught a whole lot in the bedroom, but wasn’t drafted.

The latest word was that he took a job as an assistant coach at his former high school. He has given up the dream, at age 24, of every playing in the bigs. This isn’t even Eastbound and Down. This is the norm of highly talented baseball players in the Little League World Series; ask Cody Webster, who, by high school, was (ridiculously) being called “washed up.” As of a few years ago, I believe it was a total of 29 people that had played in the Little League World Series and gone on to play Major League Baseball. In 65 years. Hyperpushy parents, take note.

Fortunately, for Danny Almonte and family, it was only 10 days until something in the tri-state area happened to make their transgression seem a trifle. Unfortunately for most of the world, the halcyon days of ranting about Little League moms and dads were very quickly a thing of the distant past.